


Mutuality

by Vee



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Epistolary, F/F, Giant Robots, Lowkey Evangelion and Pacific Rim Fusion Influence, M/M, Oral History, Technopathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:43:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8241704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vee/pseuds/Vee
Summary: "My name is Ryan Ray. That name means very little, depending on when you read this, but if you make it to 2086 and I do my job right, you still won't know my name, because I'll never have been a part of any of this. And if I can somehow manage to reset this, and not be a part of any of it, everything may turn out okay by the time you get there.This isn't to say you have to believe me, or even do anything about it. Here it is, though. Here's how it happens if you do nothing."





	1. LINE/CARRIAGE

**Author's Note:**

> (kind of a lengthy intro note here) Sometimes I have very questionable ideas in states of grief. This is one of those. 
> 
> What even to say? It's sort of a hybrid Evangelion/Pacific Rim/Cyberpunk thing, an A/U set 100 years in the future where, instead of building personal computers and the Internet, everyone is building - and piloting - giant robots to fight against a creepy, unexplained techno-organic invasion.
> 
> Told in a timeskip-happy, epistolary, and oral history format. 
> 
> Like I said, I was in quite a state of grief when I started this (not surprisingly, right after 3.08 8) this is fine)
> 
> I'm not tagging for ships or warnings until they actually become part of the narrative, to prevent anyone from getting the wrong idea, but going in please be aware that I'm a fan of both Ryan/Joe and Cameron/Donna. Both ships will probably see some play here. I mean, the first already is, kind of...
> 
> Please let me know if you're intrigued, because I'm eager to keep going with this one, considering how much of the plot I've already drawn up and phew. It's gonna get pretty heavy on the #themes.

2086

_We can fix this, though,_ Ryan thinks. _Just tell me what happened. This can't be like you said._

He has to think above the machine-voice. It's so loud, so familiar now, and his heartbeat throbs in his teeth as it drones an incantation. "Twenty-one... twenty... nineteen... Line operator has initiated Bastion shutdown sequence commencing in... fifteen..."

It usually stops there. The other voice with him in the machine, the human voice, the real voice, will slice through the tension and call it a warning, give him the option to think clearly and start cooperating. Then, there's no argument. The right hand can't help cooperating with the left, likewise a Line and their Carriage. Usually they argue regardless. For just a bit. 

_I'm still okay._ He makes the words more explicit, at the very top of his mind in case there’s trouble understanding. Tongue moving in his mouth to form syllables despite the silence, like he still did when he was getting used to paracognition. He’s expecting a reply because the connection is still wide open. _We can fix this, just please talk to me._

Even with the machine-voice counting down and the never-ending, always faithful hum of its heart like white noise vibrating in his bones, it's the absence of the other voice that seems deafening. Like the very first time he wore a pilot's conduction suit and came out of the machine gasping and panicking, feeling like his skin wasn't even his, he needs the connection that voice gives him. He needs the tether, his Line, the reminder that he's not actually part of the machine. 

At the very most, he thinks, the countdown will stop at ten. In the worst situations they never take it that far. 

He's never supposed to hold his breath in a C-suit, but he does for just one moment, listening, waiting, expecting.

"...nine..." 

"No! No no no no!" He finally finds his voice because there's not another voice in there to interrupt and compel him to reason. He claws at the manual overrides and they are completely unresponsive; just flat plastic facades, useless and mocking. The machine’s heart is still thrumming but he’s losing himself inside it, acutely aware of his skin, acutely aware of his own consciousness and its limits that can't possibly be enough. In a panic, his voice climbs to a desperate pitch. "NO! Don't you do this - you can't do this to us! It can't be that bad -- there's no way!"

It will mean the worst case scenario, if it is. Not just for now, but for everything after. That blithe Independence Day prophecy is playing out just like he was told. You'll know when it begins, he was told, but he only wants to hear the voice that told him so, once more before the countdown ends.

"What's going on? Just talk to me!" 

The machine-voice answers: "...two..." 

He's never been alone in the Hitbox before. Not in his mind. He's been listening, waiting, expecting the soothing timbre of reason in his head if not in the machine for thirty seconds now. The hope kept him from bracing for the impossible. Calming himself down doesn’t even register as an option, when he hasn’t had to do it in so long. It hasn't been his responsibility. That's the whole point, isn't it? He hasn't been alone in so long...

"Joe...?" His voice is small enough to be lost, and the Hitbox goes suddenly, impossibly dark. A black silence beyond vacuum and void, so enveloping he’s sure it tightens around him. That must be why he suddenly can’t breathe. 

He waits for a reply right up to the split-second he hears the hydraulics breathe beneath the floor, behind the walls. The Hitbox detaches from the machine with a squeal and a crunch of metal. 

Ryan has just and exactly enough time to gasp, fear, and calculate - in that order - before the jettison. 

\-- 

Too many minutes later, somewhere East of the Delcore in the Great Occidental Low Desert, he runs toward the shadow of the broken Bastion and hopes it's not too late. The ground beneath his feet is red, barren and cracked open from the years of unrelenting drought and skyfire that followed the First Western Campaign. He was four years old, he would think if he had time to think, when this was still California. His parents lived here, when they lived. It's like the threats still swarm here, appearing and reappearing in the Low Desert like vultures seeking carrion, so it’s where the Bastions meet them most often, but nothing of life remains. There's nothing at all but the small, dark figure sprinting, leaving footprints in the red dust, cutting a line between the tiny, battered metal box and the motionless colossus. 

Slumped and twisted, the Bastion remains a monstrous portend. Two arms, two legs, the uncanny effigy of a human form in dark matte steel and supplemental titanium. Cold, inert, _(nothing without us)_ , gargantuan and too far away. 

It's at least another kilometer, at least he assumes, but the landscape of the Low Desert plays tricks on the eye, dizzies the mind into poor judgment until a kilometer turns to three. He calculates it as roughly and quickly as he can by the angle of the sun, the length of the shadow, the exact figures of the Bastion’s dimensions adjusted for the slump of its pose. It has to be at least another kilometer, but not much further, and every hard breath is fire in his lungs as his body careens through footfall after footfall past the limit he broke long ago. 

At least he remembers to ball his fist and strike the center of his breastplate. It takes two tries, but finally he hits hard enough to snap the plastic joinders and push the cordon down to meet the pins sitting closer to his chest. It whirrs to life immediately, the tiny beacon lighting up the frosted edifice of the Citadel emblem, at first a dull red, blinking slower than his feet fall until it turns finally to green, signifying that his distress signal has been successfully broadcast on all nodes. The leftover throb from the weight of his own punches feels good, distracts him from the wilting numbness in his legs and the fading capacity of his struggling lungs. Sweat is wicked up by the thin fabric of his C-suit, doing most of the job the desert will be happy to finish, given the time. 

He tries to divine how long a rescue craft will take to reach him, at full throttle from the Delcore. The figures won’t come to mind. The numbers won’t fit together. Worry keeps interceding. What happened at the Delcore and why did the threat never materialize exactly where it should have, if their extrapolations meant anything?

All at once, he knows he’s not going to make it to the machine.

A wretched sense of failure erupts immediately through him, and his pace falters for an instant that sets off the chain reaction his body has been waiting to take advantage of. It is determined to steal even a moment to pause, breathe, and rest itself. After leaving the machine, recovering is usually all it can do. He’s come out of battle at times feeling broken at every joint, torn at every ligament. Running two kilometers and then some, directly out of a discarded Hitbox, was not a thing he believed his body could do. 

But he had to try.

In the last moments before his eyes roll back, just as he plummets groundward at the mercy of unconsciousness, he thinks only I’m sorry and knows he is heard. 

The Line did not cut. There is still ingress at the end of the thoughts he feeds it.  


* * *

  


> **machine 3 of the 1st Citadel Bastion Array  
> ** **Excerpt from Delcore audio logs  
> ** **August 29, 2086 02:34:46 - 02:56:23 UTC  
>  **Line Operator Joe MacMillan  
>  **Carriage Ryan Ray******  
> 

_A Note from the Transcriptionist : With this and other audio recordings used as evidence in the investigation of Ryan Ray and the Open Mutuality Project, paracognition presents a curious challenge in record-keeping. Though it is impossible to know the exact thoughts shared between MacMillan and Ray, there are distinctive and otherwise inexplicable patterns in the spectrum analysis of such recordings to strongly suggest when paracognition occurs. Such phenomena are noted as _{...} _in these transcripts._

**Ryan Ray:** Bastion says the area’s still clear. I’m not getting anything. If it’s still here, it’s taking its damn time to materialize.  
{...}  
Joe, what do you think?

**Joe MacMillan:** Ryan, I need you to listen to me.  
{...}  
I'd like you to tell me that.

**Ryan Ray:** Sorry, I was… thinking. I’m listening, though.

**Joe MacMillan:** Ryan, I’ll be here to help you as long as I possibly can, but things are going  
to start happening very fast in just a few minutes. I’m going to tell you something, and then ask you to do something for me. This is vital.

**Ryan Ray:** Okay.

**Joe MacMillan:** {...}

**Ryan Ray:** What?!

**Joe MacMillan:** And now that I’ve said it, it knows that I know. So when the Hitbox  
jettisons--

**Ryan Ray:** \--whoa, whoa, whoa, what?! What’s going to happen here, what--

**Joe MacMillan:** [overlapping] When the Hitbox jettisons you --  
{...}  
Ryan, I need you to listen! -- now, we don’t have much time as it is, and you definitely won’t. But I want you to make it back to the machine. Please. You have to get back to it, before thinking about anything else. From there, you should know what to do. 

**Ryan Ray:** What’s going to happen, Joe?

**Joe MacMillan:** ...I don’t know how I can explain it right now, but I trust you.  
{...}

**Ryan Ray:** Did you just hear that?  
What the fuck was that?  
Joe, was something else just on our Line? Did you hear that!? 

**[System]:** Line operator has initiated Bastion shutdown sequence. 

  


* * *

  


Subject: You Are Not Safe (1)  
Sent: NULL, ??:??:?? UTC  
Priority: Urgent

My name is Ryan Ray. That name means very little, depending on when you read this, but if you make it to 2086 and I do my job right, you still won't know my name, because I'll never have been a part of any of this. And if I can somehow manage to reset this, and not be a part of any of it, everything may turn out okay.

This isn't to say you have to believe me, or even do anything about it. Here it is, though. Here's how it happens.

I suppose I should set this whole thing up by telling you about IBM.

The IBM of thirty years ago, which was not like the IBM of sixty years ago, and definitely nothing like the IBM of a hundred years ago, which is the earliest you'll probably be able to read this, revealed the project when it happened. When the first threat appeared, the network was born - revealed to everyone at the same time - and thank goodness it was ready. It spanned ten countries and had taken combined investments of billions, the combined research and development and covert testing of decades. 

We were scared of the machines, at first. But we were more scared by the things we couldn't see, since they were suddenly among us and killing us off. I wasn't alive then, when it started, but my parents told me all about it. Our families, our neighbors, entire cities. Overnight. In an instant, and without a trace. All we knew were the things that remained - impenetrable and inexplicable structures, monoliths, plain and terrifying that cropped up wherever the threats had been. 

The threats were all technological, like signals with a strategy, almost a sentience. We weren't told much more, because IBM and the global military it operated under told us we didn't know anything else. 

But thanks to IBM, we were told, the future wasn't nearly as bleak as it seemed. After all, what we had were titanic, networked fighting machines that could adapt to the threats, combat them, gather data to predict the next step, and most importantly protect us. That was the thing - only machines were anything against them. But when a threat knew a machine was on to it, it didn't just make itself into a plain monolith. It fought back, materialized into so much more than that, and the fighting was on a scale none of us had imagined. 

I guess I can get more into that later. I only have so much time, right now, so I at least want to lay the history out. 

Lacking a sense of ownership and hubris in that particular crossroads of human history, we simply called them the machines. Not even a proper noun to distinguish them from anything else we'd ever employed for human convenience and survival. They weren't treated specially, like ersatz humans. They weren't symbols on which to hang our prayers and futures. They were just another option, just another tool. 

The IBM machines failed, for the most part. They could never adapt fast enough. Battles raged and battles were lost, entire seaboards and metropolises had transformed into gardens of pillars and monoliths. In only five years we all knew the scope of the disaster that was going to eat us whole. 

The only option became old fashioned war machines: artillery, then biological, and finally nuclear.

When what was left of the human race turned against the global military, around twenty years ago, IBM went down with them. Most things went down with them. A lot of people like me lost their families in the revolution, if they hadn't already lost them during the bombing campaigns. 

In the reconstruction that followed, the IBM nodes sat empty. Military had turned private industry, but the money was simply not there. The resources were not available to resurrect an ambulatory machine network spanning a globe that had been mostly destroyed already. Knowing that the threats would continue, that we were still not safe, we were nearly resigned to the quiet conclusion that humankind had reached its end. 

Then came the team that changed all that, rebuilding one of the original machines from the inside out, mostly with repurposed materials, and with the most important difference - a pilot.

In this iteration, the pilot was a remote operation. This, after an apparently lengthy debate between creators and investors, which ultimately underestimated the weight of public opinion. The rebuilt machines from this iniative - called the Giants - were commissioned for only half a production run, but it was a start. The threats had turned to lightning strikes since the nuclear campaigns wiped out the monolith cities. They were striking only occasionally and unexpectedly, but the need for future defense was climbing the list of priorities in the public consciousness.

It turned out, as some noted and acted upon, that the world wanted the symbol of hope, the bastion IBM had refused to let us have. The world seemed determined still to find it in the machines. At least - at the very least - the machines had never considered our death and disease collateral damage. 

The plan for a repurposed network of combat pilot intelligence took over in the form of Mutiny, led by the engineer who designed the Giants themselves, and the pilot who wanted to crawl inside the machines, and claimed to understand them. Cameron Howe promised to make the savior IBM had eschewed so many years ago, teaching machines the instincts of humanity itself. 

In 2082, after leading and subsequently abandoning the Giant initiative, that's when Joe MacMillan pirated and took over operation on a quarter of the nodes in what was now the Mutiny network, monitoring the most active hotbeds of threat activity. No one knew he was also modifying the Giant production models that had disappeared along with him after the initiative's demise. Well, no one knew except me. Because I was inside them. Every one of them, at some point. And eventually, all of them at once. 

More to follow.

  


* * *

  


>   
>  **Interview of Ryan Ray**  
>  **Excerpt, the first  
>  **August 30, 2086 08:04:17 UTC  
>  **Investigator Warden [name undisclosed]  
>  **Ryan Ray********  
> 

**Interviewer:** When did you first pilot a Citadel Bastion? 

**Ryan Ray:** I was 23 when I first got in there, technically. He was still calling them the Giants at the time. Hadn't rebranded yet. I was a little old for a pilot to start. I mean, based on the data we have. You wanna hit somewhere between puberty and 22, ideally. 22 at the latest. But my brain still has abnormally high elasticity for my age and that was the primary criteria. Spent about two weeks solid in the Hitbox when I started, just for the acclimation.

**Interviewer:** Hitbox?

**Ryan Ray:** Oh... [he laughs] uh, the cockpit, I guess. I've always called it the Hitbox. It sort of became a joke, but now it's on the actual schematics, even. The one vulnerability of a Bastion, really, is the pilot. So I mean... it is the Hitbox. And it's pretty small, thankfully.

**Interviewer:** And your first battle against a threat? 

**Ryan Ray:** Four months ago. I was 25.

**Interviewer:** Your age now?

**Ryan Ray:** I'm 26. 26 and six days.

**Interviewer:** Happy belated birthday.

**Ryan Ray:** Thanks. I've had happier.

  


* * *

  


Subject: You Are Not Safe (2)  
Sent: NULL, ??:??:?? UTC  
Priority: Urgent

By 2083, there had been no significant attacks in two years, and the most recent had been absolutely obliterated by the Mutiny machines, by Cameron Howe who shouldered the celebrity, and Donna Clark, whose name was only remembered by those who still flinched to attention at the word Mutuality. 

In the doldrums, in the peace during which we had managed to really rebuild, that's when Joe became the fearmonger and prophet, revealing a new take on the old defense network, calling it Citadel. 

No one asked, at least no one who ever got to the point of asking in the right way, how Joe knew about the changes that were coming. The variations that took the threats to another level entirely. But he did, somehow. Then somehow, when we went against it for the first time, Joe and I, together, him on the pulse of the network, in my head, and me in the Hitbox of the machine... we won. Against all odds, we won. 

That's when things began, I guess. 

I'll tell you about Mutuality when I can get back to this. I need to stop for now. These are going to take long enough to send, on their own.

  


* * *

  


>   
>  **Interview of Ryan Ray**  
>  **Excerpt, the second  
> ** **August 30, 2086 08:11:45 UTC  
>  **Investigator Warden [name undisclosed]  
>  **Ryan Ray******  
> 

**Interviewer:** When did you leave Mutiny? 

**Ryan Ray:** June, 2082. A little more than four years ago.

**Interviewer:** And you left to go to work for Joseph MacMillan?

**Ryan Ray:** That's correct.

**Interviewer:** On the Open Mutuality project?

**Ryan Ray:** Not initially. I hoped it would come up, but... I only wanted to work with him.

**Interviewer:** The reason you gave in your resignation letter was that you had creative differences with Cameron Howe and Donna Clark.

**Ryan Ray:** I had suggestions for improvements to the fortification of the Mutiny network, yes. Legitimate suggestions, but they were dismissed out of hand. As a result I found it an unsafe environment to continue pursuing my goals.

**Interviewer:** Did you intend to train as a pilot for Mutiny?

**Ryan Ray:** Always. I'm a Carriage, I knew I was meant to be one ever since I read about Mutuality. I know the machines.

**Interviewer:** So the school of theory is unimportant? 

**Ryan Ray:** Well, obviously when I heard about Open Mutuality, something clicked. Everything Joe said, it made sense. I'm not the psychologist, but some things you have to sense from the machine perspective, and I knew he _got it_. It's bigger than us, yeah, sure, but it's also nothing without us.

**Interviewer:** The philosophy of Open Mutuality is what drew you to Joe MacMillan?

**Ryan Ray:** No...! Well... I guess. But not entirely. Listen, I knew something was coming. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to wait for everyone else to figure that out. My entire life, everything I gave a damn about, seemed pointed right at it. It's like I had a duty, a destiny, and it's like meeting him was part of it.

**Interviewer:** We can get back to that. You're upset, and that's understandable.

**Ryan Ray:** I'm not upset, okay? I'm... it's different... {...} Look, what do you need to know?

**Interviewer:** Everything.  
{...}  
...Mister Ray, this is now an investigation of the highest global priority, but no charges have been brought against you, and you are not obligated to say anything else.

**Ryan Ray:** Can you please just tell me first whether he's alive? What even happened? I haven't even been debriefed!

**Interviewer:** You were picked up by the Citadel automated rescue vessel yesterday, about three hours after the most recent Bastion sortie in the Low Desert. It brought you-- 

**Ryan Ray:** I know that part! I know what happened to me, but I don't care about that! Just... what about the Delcore? What about Joe? 

**Interviewer:** I wish we could tell you more. Truly. It would save time and money. But currently you're the only one who understands the Open Mutuality Project on the level we need. You're the one who's going to help us answer the question of what happened to Joe MacMillan.

**Ryan Ray:** All right.  
{...}  
...I know.  
{...} 

**Interviewer:** Mister Ray?

**Ryan Ray:** I'll tell you everything, just tell me where to start.


	2. C-SUIT

2086

Inspiring, that there are still even enough people in the world for throngs to form. If she smiled more (if she didn’t feel the constant crosshairs of eyes waiting to judge her every move, a more pleasant consideration) it would draw a smile from her. They gather mostly on the rail station platforms in the morning, milling about, their lives enough to enjoy just by being what they are. Having them at all seems enough for celebration, some days.

And some days, she winds up standing next to the poster purely by coincidence. She avoids it, most of the time, but every now and then she'll be caught up in her music and the gathering mass of people will crowd her to the edge of the platform where the shades of bold red and stark white stand out against the muted palette of the day-to-day. The portrait was originally oil on canvas, reproduced on ubiquitous rail station posters and fliers for a goodwill campaign spanning the globe. They had enough money to invest in one, between ‘84 and ‘86.

Cameron didn’t even pose for the painting; the artist worked from a few 3D photographs. The original is hanging in some billionaire investor’s mountain-top home farther mainland. She enjoys the chance to see it, and knows she wouldn’t have it any other way than reproduced as a poster on a crowded rail platform in central Chenzhou, in the face of all the damage the world can do to it.

Chenzhou became home five years ago. For reasons only loose theories still congregate around, the threats seemed to be focusing on seaboards and islands first. The United Nations and most of the global government set up shop in Nigeria during the reconstruction, but the nucleus of technological advancement moved to China, and so the operating staff of Mutiny followed. The money was there, and remains there, as does the surplus of mainland. Underground cities have returned to vogue like some dismal callback to the Cold War, assuming the threats will not follow.

Thus far they haven't. China as a whole remains largely unthreatened. The results of time and security are only just starting to bleed into the urban landscape. More people are at ease again with the thought of living comfortably. Shopping centers are rich with the glittering and aspirational, luxury (above-ground) apartments are making new skylines, and brightly colored rail station posters are finally becoming commonplace again. As industry returns, and as day-to-day life finds grounding in new routines, it shows most evidently in the rail stations. At least she thinks so.

A stranger pauses, does a double-take, and points at her. Cameron gives him her attention, blinking her eyes in the short Morse-code pattern that momentarily mutes her music. He speaks, and after a beat the automatic translation key tells her what was said. "That's you." The stranger’s grin spreads as he goes on. "You're Cameron Howe." She turns halfway to look at the poster curiously, as if she's never seen it, as if she hasn't already spent too many minutes of her life looking at it. Beneath her figure in the tight hybrid mesh of the C-Suit with its hard breastplate boasting her cordon are the words “Mutiny is Fighting for Our Future!”

"Oh yeah," she answers with an almost-sly smile and a pulse of her eyebrows. She won’t deny it - it’s kind of inspiring. “It’s me.”

He expresses his humble shock, asks to shake her hand, and stumbles around the best way to thank her, injecting a few personal anecdotes about his favorite battles and moments.

“I’m sorry,” he finally pauses, noticing that he never let go. They glance down at their joined hands and chuckle, but Cameron isn't about to be the one to pull it away. Sometimes, actually, she welcomes the opportunity to hold someone else’s hand for just a few more moments than would be strictly necessary. “I’m making it sound like some… video game.”

“That’s okay,” Cameron says softly, and shakes his hand in hers again, adjusting the grip to be more familiar, more comforting. “That means you feel safe, right? That’s all that matters. That’s all any of us would ask for.”

“Yeah. I do. I really do. Thank you so much.”

“Is this your train?” The light rail commuter trains aren't new constructions - the system was completed in Chenzhou about five years prior to the first attacks. Only cosmetic changes and routing system upgrades have been made, and the wholly mechanical rumble of a pre-machine-network train gliding in on its track remains quaint and sobering at once.

He glances over. “No, it’s coming in a minute, though. Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go for it.”

A conspiratorial whisper takes over his tone, and he leans slightly closer. Their hands slide apart naturally. “What do they look like? When they materialize, what do you see?”

Focusing on nothing suddenly, Cameron reminds herself that he couldn’t possibly know. It’s as hard to remember that as it is to try and forget the images in the first place. The grotesque, almost-organic forms the threats take on when confronted by a machine… they’re on the forefront of her mind, always lurking, always standing sentinel, and yet she can’t conjure up the words to describe them. Every one of them different, every one of them twisted and ghoulish in some new, awful way that she simply must put out of her mind. Some nights, awful nights since she turned 18 and put on a C-suit for the first time, she'll lie awake in bed overwhelmed by the idea that they're in her room, looking down at her with uncanny eyes in impossible places.

“It’s… it’s very hard to talk about that.” At the same time that she takes a step back, trying to remain amicable, she wishes she were still holding on to someone’s hand - anyone’s. “I’m sorry, it’s…”

“Classified.” He says it in Xiang Chinese, she says it in English, but they say it in unison. Cameron gives a hollow, anxious laugh.

“I’m really sorry. I understand.” And it's as if he truly does. “This is my train, but… wow, it was such an honor. I’ll always support Mutiny. You’re a hero, I hope you know that.”

Sometimes, it helps to be told. “Thank you so much.” "Hey, by the way,” he asks as he moves for the throng listing toward the train entrance, “what are you doing taking the rail?" Hands shoved back into the pockets of her summer coat, she shrugs. "Machining doesn't pay too well, believe it or not."

With a last incredulous glance, as if he can’t bring himself to believe her on this one, the stranger melts into the crowd to be whisked away by rail to his own routine, his own day-to-day.

Gasping out a deep breath that she didn’t realise she had been holding, Cameron accesses her messages, three thoughts ahead and intending to send a small rant to Donna Clark before she realizes there are two messages waiting for her.

Not surprisingly, but somehow comfortingly, they’re both from Donna. Her face softens slightly as she receives them.

> _Hey. You need to read this. I want you to know now._

The second message is simply a link. It blinks in her purview, and something about Donna’s choice of words tells her not to open it right away.

Donna picks up within seconds when Cameron calls. “Did you read it? Are you okay?”

The tone of her voice is not one that Cameron hears often, and it gives her pause. "Not yet. I haven’t read it yet. What should I expect, before I open this link?"

"It's about Citadel."

Immediately, a wad of agitation gathers in her throat and she pushes it out with a disgusted sigh. "God... Donna, it's too early for this."

"No, I would think the same thing, but just... read it. Are you close? You can read it when you get in, if you’d rather. Actually the more I think about it, I’d rather you do that. I want to be around."

The borderline-parental tone, now that's one she's used to. Cameron glances up at the digital map displayed on the wall of the train car as it tracks their path along the southbound route. Donna’s concern is a comfort, at least, as good as a hand to hold on some days when they can't see each other in person. “Yeah, I'm about ten minutes out, probably. I'll give it a look when I'm there, okay?”

“Okay…” and there's an even more familiar tone; the one with the sadness on its edges and the compassion at its core. Hearing that tone, Cameron finally takes a deeper breath than she's been able to all morning. “I'll see you soon, all right?”

“See ya then,” she chirps in response, and closes the call. Knowing exactly the song she wants to hear, she switches over to her music again, pushing it beyond the approved volume for endoaural playback. Who cares, she thinks. As if any medical coverage would foot the bill for a machine pilot as it is. It would be worth it to lose her insurance over one of the last simple pleasures she has left.

The song reminds her of the machines, and helps her stop thinking about Joe MacMillan for the first time since Donna said the word “Citadel”. The rail car continues its journey south, and Cameron is on her way home.

* * *

Joe MacMillan Addresses the United Nations Committee on Machine Network Regulation  
Abuja, Nigeria  
February 18, 2084

“Upon being extended the honor to speak before this committee in support of Open Mutuality theory and the initiative proposed by Citadel, a lot went through my head. I was humbled, excited, a little afraid. I wondered what I was coming here to say, exactly, that wasn't in my original proposal. If I was only coming here to beg for goodwill funding, it didn't make sense to be as anxious as I felt. I realized after some deliberation that I was coming here not only in support of Open Mutuality, but in defense of it, in spite of many things that are very difficult to defend, at least in words.

I could quote Donna Clark and her original paper on Symphonic Mutuality, spinning something beautiful around the exhaustively researched idea that a machine cannot fight without a human being putting it in motion, and then a human being cannot survive the machine connection without the support of another human being. I could make that a metaphor around which everything else is built - turn this network of machines into a network of people, working with the machines, working together. But that's not entirely it. Symphonic Mutuality was the pioneer, but it was not the answer. We learned from Symphonic Mutuality through the experiments of Gordon and Donna Clark that the psychology of the connection between pilots is more important than we ever imagined, and that human beings at their most like-minded can, given the power of the machines, destroy themselves through that connection.

So I thought, I can quote Cameron Howe, who said this: “engineering, war, and survival all come down to the same thing: allocation of resources.” When the original proposal for her pilot system landed on my desk when I was directing the Giant initiative, it was idealistic, immature. The idea was… inspiring. But the element to bring it all together wasn't there. It was Donna Clark, still processing the effects of the failed experiments in Symphonic Mutuality, who set Cameron Howe down the path to the working theory that changed - possibly saved - every life in this room.

The idea of two connected but entirely autonomous pilots, a remote operator who shared the input controls with the direct operator, and the deep learning network code that put all final decisions in the hands of the machine itself… that was where it began. That's what the Giant initiative did not have the missing piece to implement. But rebuilding in the wake of that failed project, the light bulb went off for Howe and Clark. The most important aspect of Mutinous Mutuality, the revised and official manifesto stressed, was the psychological incompatibility of the operators. Fundamentally diametric thought processes with different values, instincts, and tendencies, became the best chance for our survival. And the results speak for themselves, don't they?

But sustainability became the watchword. The code for the deep learning network bled into other options, mutations, improvements, as the resources became slimmer and slimmer. Pilot resources, most especially. Everyone wanted to be a remote pilot - the Line operator.. I know, I was training candidates on the Western Network, in awe of the single-minded commitment and excellence it takes to bond with the machines enough to be a Carriage. As I witnessed the brightest, most determined minds of the human race be rejected by the network, I returned again and again to the research I had been poring over since the Giant initiative. There had to be a way, and there always was a way, I knew, to minimize the toll on our human resources, to truly utilize only the greatest pilot candidates in the world, and to still let the machines have the final say.

When a machine pilot - a Carriage - encounters a threat, do you know what they see?

Of course you don't, none of us do unless we've fought one. And a Carriage is forever changed by that knowledge. Conspiracy theories whisper that the classification on these reports is intended to pacify us and keep us blind to the facts, but the only facts come from the memories of our pilots, who are not employed by any shadow enterprise. There is no mysterious agenda telling them to lie awake at night terrified by these memories.

The best pilots, we’re told, don't say a word about it. The best pairs like Howe and Clark have this selective omission and unconditional trust down to an absolute science. As a Line operator, albeit a rookie one, I listened to my Carriage try to tell me what they looked like. I thought, I want to know. I want to know exactly what they're seeing, and fighting, and I could help so much more if I could only know… but there are some things, some barriers, the psychology of Mutuality theory did not account for.

I came back to it again and again, wondering how we, as a species, can use our psychology to an even greater strength, and take some of the burden off our best and brightest. It's not sustainable. I knew, when my wife and Carriage blamed the network for everything that had fallen apart between us, for the fact that she almost died before we ever got to fight together, that there were barriers perhaps only the machines could help us destroy.

Almost ten years of deep learning is coursing through the network, bouncing from node to node, as the Carriage learns from the Line and the machine learns from both of them, but there's a fundamental disconnect that occurs between human and machine. There always has been.

What if we weren't only teaching the machines, and trusting them to react in our best interests. What if the connection ran both ways?

People want to believe Open Mutuality is a misguided, maudlin ideal some messianic crackpot came up with because he wanted his wife to be a pilot. But it's not about that at all. In fact, the very first thing to understand about Open Mutuality is that choice is everything. It's about openness, after all. It's about the barriers between humans coming down, and the barriers between human and machine disintegrating through that very same concept. And we have to make the choice to welcome that.

Deep learning on the global machine network cannot sustain the contradictions, the psychological delimiters. We cannot teach the machines based on these barriers and blind spots. The network could know the same threat by numerous different faces, depending on how many Carriages are looking at it. Instinct is what the machines have to learn from us, and perception is what we must learn from them. When the Line is reacting on instinct, it doesn't even see the face of the threat at all. Trust, while beautiful, leaves room for betrayal, and it would be naive to think the threats haven't zeroed in on this weakness yet.

Trust is no substitute for the simple bliss of openness.

Through Open Mutuality, the contradictions will end. The Line will be a unified front with the Carriage by way of facultative mental symbiosis, including the implementation of paracognitive communication - the tactic for achieving this is well-documented with Citadel’s recent advancements in C-suit integration - and the Carriage, in turn, will enter a mutualistic symbiosis with the network itself. No diametric values, no perceptive incompatibility, no secrets. Operator, pilot, network.

Though the process may be slow, the eventual outcome will be a common machine consciousness. A defense system that is receptive, adaptive, and sustainable.

Open Mutuality is the original theory of ten years ago, refined to its most elegant fundamental, and if we want to hold on to our greatest hope for survival, the choice must be made for implementation to begin now. The threats have gone quiet; they are learning, they are adapting, and we need to be prepared. Whether they strike at the weakness of man or machine, we need to appear as one, because neither of us will win this fight if the distinction between us remains so clear.

I honestly, openly, appeal to you… the infrastructure is there, the science is there. The path is clear, and Citadel is ready. All I'm asking for is time, and support. Please, for the sake of our future, do not bet against openness.”

* * *

OFFICIAL MEMORANDUM  
Determining Location: Provincial Ward 1ESW, North America  
Subject: Ryan Ray  
Date: September 3, 2086

It is the determination of the provincial wardens of 1ESW, North America, that Ryan Ray not be held in custody at this or any other Provincial Garrison during the investigation into the events of 8/29/2086 and the current status of the Citadel Bastion Array. Mr. Ray has agreed to biweekly interviews at the Chenzhou Provincial Garrison pursuant to the needs of the investigation.

In accordance with the Private Defense Act of 2080, his Class 1 machine operator’s clearance will remain active.

The wardens issuing this determination also strongly advise that Mr. Ray seek continuing employment as a machine operator, for the sake of his mental fortitude.

Mr. Ray's residence will remain officially registered as Citadel International Headquarters, colloquially known as The Delcore. Considering the events of 8/29/2086, however, his residency status has been updated to “Transient - DP”.

* * *

 

**Mutiny International Headquarters - Chenzhou, China**  
**Excerpt from Executive Office Security Audio Feed**  
**September 5, 2086 07:16 UTC - 07:32 UTC**  
**Ryan Ray, Cameron Howe, Donna Clark**

**_A Note from the Transcriptionist_ :** The following audio segment provides the only documented interaction from the day that Ryan Ray returned to Mutiny Headquarters. According to Mr. Ray, he turned up unannounced, with no messages or contact that would otherwise have been recorded by the network. Also according to Mr. Ray, after briefly explaining his situation he was offered a temporary residence at Mutiny International Headquarters by Cameron Howe. Temporary residence logging was to be completed in the Executive Office, where the transcript below begins.

**Cameron Howe:** ...so what was its name?

**Ryan Ray:** Didn't name it. machine 3. That's it.

**Donna Clark:** That’s Joe for you, though. He never liked naming them.

**Cameron Howe:** He didn't have many superstitions, but… that was definitely one. I’ve been calling Ada by her name since I started piloting. He hated it, but it hasn't hurt a thing.

**Donna Clark:** To be fair, Joe had a reason.

**Ryan Ray:** Can we please… stop using past tense, please?

**Donna Clark:** Ryan….

**Cameron Howe:** Donna, go on. I mean, we don't need to talk about him at all. Just the ideas. Seems fitting.

**Donna Clark:** It's because of the implementation of common consciousness. The machine consciousness is still immature; it can't be expected to process individual identity. No names cuts down on the confusion, reinforces the difference between human and machine in the beginning.

**Ryan Ray:** That was early theory. We're past that now. Naming a machine now is like naming a… a toaster. There's no need. But the superstition is there, everyone still has it. I just thought it was humanity's way of pulling a speak no evil on this whole thing; wishy-washy if you ask me.

**Cameron Howe:** All right, I’ll take that bait. Explain.

**Ryan Ray:** Look, IBM had entire teams dedicated to extrapolating scenarios that could lead to the singularity, and putting checks in place to prevent it. It’s what kept the original project so weak, honestly. A lot of the original research money and time went to simulating those scenarios. Forbidding individual names was one of the big No’s.

**Donna Clark:** Wait… how do you know that?

**Ryan Ray:** I spent my teens hacking old databases. Don't forget how I got my job here.

**Cameron Howe:** Okay…? So your point is?

**Ryan Ray:** We could all name our machines and it wouldn't change a thing, is my point. If the network is strong enough, and I believe it is, the fear is unnecessary. But the public would have a harder time accepting it.

**Donna Clark:** So you aren't at least a little scared by the idea of the singularity?

**Ryan Ray:** After what this world's been through, I think it's time we gave a machine a shot at it. Using the singularity as a ghost story assumes that we haven't been preparing ourselves over a hundred years for it. You can't, as a species, dedicate so much fascination and power to trying to make something more human, also try to make it more powerful at the same time, and then deny that you want a new god. It’s like Joe wrote, ‘Our worst vanity is that when most of us abstract an ideal machine, we want the best version of what we think humans should be.’ A blank slate to fill in what we want. We want to be god, but we know we can't, so the machines we make have all been indulgent self-portraits, not imprints.

**Donna Clark:** I think the more important part is just not saying the name out loud. That's what Gordon and I always said. You don't invite a vampire in, and you don't tell a machine its name.  
  
What? Don't give me that look! We're superstitious like anyone else!

**Cameron Howe:** Fine, but in defense of the machines: I don't buy it. Ada wouldn't hurt me. I trust her.

**Ryan Ray:** Are you both seriously going to ignore everything I just said? Listen, I understand if you're not as on-board as I am, but I also trust the machines implicitly. Even in a singularity scenario, I don't have any reason to believe they'd hurt us. But it's not about them, you know?

**Cameron Howe:** Excuse me?

**Ryan Ray:** In the frame of Mutinous Mutuality you depend on the network to choose the best option; you defer to the machine, right?

**Cameron Howe:** Yeah, of course.

**Ryan Ray:** Okay, so your machine knows it has the veto power. From the outset, the machine is predisposed to question you.

**Cameron Howe:** That's not how I see it at all, and --

**Ryan Ray:** Where would your machine even begin to trust you?

**Cameron Howe:** [scoffs] See, this is why no one likes you - you come back here, I do something nice for you, and then out of nowhere you suggest something like that! That machine is my entire life. I love her. I love her more than you've probably loved anything!

**Ryan Ray:** I didn't mean it like that! I didn't say she doesn't trust you! I just want to know, how do we know that? Do we just have faith that they do? Because that's incredibly presumptuous! But I guess you'd know a thing or two about that, the way you talk to people.

**Cameron Howe:** You can't figure everything out, Ryan. You and Joe, that's what you're trying to do, but you can't quantify things like instinct and trust. Pilot training is all about psychology, it's not an exact science.

**Ryan Ray:** You know I know that. You know he knows that, too.

**Cameron Howe:** Oh, good! Not that I expected you'd be telling me anything that didn't have the Joe MacMillan stamp of approval.

**Ryan Ray:** I've dedicated just as much of my life to the machines as you have.

**Cameron Howe:** No, Ryan, that's not what I've dedicated my life to - I've dedicated my life to doing something about what's going on! I'm still fighting while you're managing to lose your machine! 

**Ryan Ray:** ...okay. You know… {...} never mind. Never mind.

**Cameron Howe:** What? What do you want to say to me? Just say it!

**Ryan Ray:** Doing something about what's going on, did that include sabotaging the original Western Network? Did it include almost killing a fellow pilot?

**Cameron Howe:** You have no idea what you're talking about.

**Ryan Ray:** How did anything you did equate to fighting the threats?

**Cameron Howe:** How can you lose a machine, Ryan? How can it literally disappear? How did you let that happen to the Delcore? That was all on you -- all on you! I've made some questionable choices in my life but they were all choices. Admit you screwed this up.

**Ryan Ray:** I couldn't get back to the machine in time. I failed. But you don't understand what happened. 

**Cameron Howe:** You know, I used to feel sorry for you. I thought he was just using you, putting you in a cage for his little experiments. But you totally went in on it, didn't you? From the beginning. 

**Ryan Ray:** That’s how it works. That's the only way Open Mutuali--

**Cameron Howe:** Open Mutuality is a mistake. It's exploitative, it ruins people.

**Ryan Ray:** Maybe Joe just needed to find a pilot who actually believed in it. 

**Cameron Howe:** Why are you here?

**Ryan Ray:** I’m here to keep fighting. I'm a good pilot. I'm one of the best. I need to keep fighting because the threats are getting stronger. It's happening exactly how he said it would and I don't need to understand exactly what's going on to know that we need all the help we can get.

**Cameron Howe:** You know what, I lied. You don't have a place to stay here.

**Donna Clark:** Maybe we should all just take a break, and regroup tomorrow.

**Cameron Howe:** No… something's not right. This doesn't add up. We’re done here. I don't want him on my network. I don't want this place to become a monolith the way the Delcore did.

[A door slams]

**Donna Clark:** I'll talk to her. Just… don't go anywhere, okay?

**Ryan Ray:** I don't have anywhere else to go.

**Donna Clark:** We’ll figure this out. I'm going to talk to her.

[Heels tap on the floor; a door creaks open, and closes softly again]

{...}

**Ryan Ray:** Damnit...

* * *

2085  
  
As the C-suit came off, the numbness took over. The trials had been nothing like that. The acclimation period, the scenarios... nothing could have prepared Ryan Ray (three months as the most searched, most newsworthy, most valuable living person on Earth despite not having debuted in combat, despite no public appearances since his employment with Citadel) for the feeling of battle, and the feeling that followed. It was as if senses he'd never had before were coming alive, only to scream out in protest. It was an other-worldly disconnection from his own body, robbing him of the ability to balance or call on his muscle memories. It was as if, by shedding the C-suit, he abdicated his equilibrium itself. Something, surely, undeniably, went along with the tightly woven fibers of carbon and steel and nylon.  A piece of himself, a layer of his connection to everything around him.

As the numbness faded, the cold set in.  
  
_I'm so cold,_ he thought, because talking wasn't an option.  
  
The Line was still open, but his thoughts were not answered. They’d never tried it, outside of the machine. But talking, he wished he could tell Joe, wasn't an option.  
  
"What can I do?" Joe tried to understand. The closer he knelt, the harder he stared, the longer the flat of his hand rested against the terrifyingly cold skin of Ryan's forearm, the quicker it dawned on him that it was all too much. The machine was their conduit, their parser, and without it they were suddenly at a loss for communication.  
  
Anxious as he'd never felt before, not in his life and certainly not since the Line training had centered him far away from all those worries, Joe wrapped a blanket around Ryan where he sat on the floor, and clutched it tightly with fingertips that had gone numb on his skin.  
  
_I can't... think. I'm cold._ Sure enough, the potency of Ryan's thoughts began to fade even in his own mind, like a fraying radio signal, mostly static. _Can't think..._  
  
"Ryan, I'm here,” Joe said, replying to nothing, grasping at the chance that maybe he was heard, and maybe a sound would follow.  
  
_You can't talk. You can't talk, it's okay._ The cold of panic gave way to a hope so bold that he threw a thought into the aether, knowing as well as Ryan that they'd never heard each other in their minds without a machine between them. If you can hear me, though... if you hear me for even an instant, let me know. We'll do what we did when we we started training, okay? I think 1-2-3, you think 4-5-6. Imagine I'm saying I'm here, and you're saying me too, okay? 1-2-3...  
  
"...cold."  
  
"Ryan, did you hear me?" Joe whispered, almost frenzied with the distraction of forcing the Line beyond himself, beyond the machine, beyond what they both should have been capable of.

On the tile floor of the large, empty room, he stayed close to Ryan's hunched, tightly curled figure as he moved to settle behind him. There, he wrapped his arms around him, rested his cheek on the back of Ryan's head, and concentrated.  
  
_1-2-3_  
  
As Joe's weight relaxed against him, as strong arms embraced him tighter and the pace of their breath began to fall into rhythm, Ryan pressed back into his chest.  
  
_1-2-3_  
  
The smallest movement was still a sign of life, and a reaction more encouragingly.  
  
_1-2-3.... Ryan, you're here. You're right here, and I'm here too. You're out of the machine, okay? You're not there anymore. But you're still with me. Can you hear me? 1-2-3..._  
  
_4-5-6_  
  
For a moment, Joe's breath caught in his throat, falling out of sync with Ryan's. It was faint, but he'd heard it. The fidelity of the thought was weak, thin, barely a whisper on the Line, but the fact that it was there at all made him take his next breath on a sob.  
  
_1-2-3_  
  
_4-5-6_  
  
The relief was palpable, so intense that it shuddered through the Line itself, the same way Joe had felt terror and determination and exhaustion - all Ryan's - take him over during the battle.  
  
Working through the trembling laughter of feeling too much, Joe fought to match their breath again and worked to banish every shred of anxiety and fear from his mind so it wouldn't contaminate the Line that was more gloriously open than he'd ever imagined.  
  
His arms ached with how tightly and tenaciously he held on, as minutes gave way to nearly an hour and their call and response became clearer, louder, more immediate.  
  
Ryan's body was warm through the blanket when he finally broke the silence they'd settled on for some time.  
  
_No, it’s not._

_What?_  
  
_It's okay._  
  
_What do you mean?_  
  
_You don't have to be sorry. It's not your fault, it never was._  
  
_But... I wasn't... why would you tell me that?_  
  
The fidelity thinned and frayed once more as a tremor of something unlike openness filled the space between them. Joe wondered how clearly Ryan could feel the heartbeat on his back as it thudded louder in the silence. He wondered how clearly he could hear anything, and everything.  
_Never mind,_ Ryan finally thought. _I must have been mistaken._  
  
They both knew, though, that he hadn’t been.

* * *

Subject: Reciprocity  
From: Joe MacMillan  
Sent: July 20, 2086 00:42:27 UTC  
Priority: High

Dear friend,

Ages ago, it seems, you said that if I had a heart at all, I'd do a certain thing. I'm positive you remember what that was, and not a day passes that I don't think about the way everything has built and fallen around that decision, ever since. In the entire world, maybe; that is, if this isn't just a prolonged dream we've all yet to wake up from. Tell me you don't wonder about it too, sometimes, in the dead of night, whether the organic world still turns.

You might be surprised at this letter. You might be confused, too, and I wouldn't fault you. Forgive me for not calling, to tell you this; some days, recent days, I forget how to use my voice. I didn't expect it, of course, but I'm glad for that. If I'd known, I might never have considered the sacrifice worth it.

I'm trying to keep this short, I promise you. The mind wanders, and the words don't follow as quickly as they used to. If you still hate me, well… that much I understand, which is why I led with the memory of that thing you asked me, presupposing I had a heart. Maybe there's a noble reciprocal spirit in you, or at least some honor between Lines.

Donna, have you ever been inside her head? Have you ever wanted to be, or were you always scared? Does it terrify you, even when you love someone, even when you're convinced you'd do anything and cut out your own heart to save them, to consider the secrets they might keep? I have to be steady. I have to be impassive. We have to hold the Line, after all. But what do you do -- I wish I could just call you, talk about this, but I can't, I just can't -- with the tension, the worry, the anger, the regret, what do you do when you look at her and think you'll never, ever be able to deserve her, and you'll never completely trust her, either, because there's too much you can't know. If you could just unlock it all, and if she gave you the key, would you do it?

And vice versa…

What about our secrets? Where do people like you and I begin to offer that key?

Take that, all of that, to the heart I know you have. Understand it, mull over it, and you'll know the barest fragment of what I've disappeared into.

Hard times are coming. A new threat is on its way.

I wander corridors between thoughts, some days, endlessly, mine and his, and bounce from the most incredible high of devotion and purpose, to the most nauseating low of fear and resentment.

Paranoia begins to consume me. I'm so much better at keeping secrets. I've practiced hiding places for years. I want to believe you're a better Line than I am. I want to believe that's why she loves you like she does.

This doesn't need to be a damn confessional, but it's been so long since I've confessed anything, Donna. I'm drowning. I’m being pulled down by a weight I can’t outrun anymore.

So here's what I wrote to you to say. To really say.

When this all falls apart, take care of Ryan for me. He’ll piss Cameron off and he won't have any idea what he's doing, but he'll know enough to go back to the network. And he'll be so alone… I can't explain how alone he will be.

You should know it, you should be able to see it... he's so important. He is the key to everything, Donna. Trust him.

Please.

If I had a heart, back then, it's the same one I've cut out and turned over to him now.

* * *

Subject: You Are Not Safe (4) [RECOVERED]  
Sent: NULL, ??:??:?? UTC  
Priority: Urgent

**SYSTEM ERROR: The message you are viewing has been rebuilt from data that may have been corrupted, truncated, or received in an unexpected format. To restore this message to your Inbox, Select “Restore”. If you do not wish to restore this message, simply close this window.**

I guess I should start numbering these, shouldn't I? In case something gets lost in transit. I should have thought of this sooner, but forgive me for being a little on edge right now. I’m still in awe that this seems to be working. But soon, she’s going to catch on.

Look at me, documenting my work. Cameron wouldn’t believe this was me.

You Are Not Safe  
Part One: IBM and the first Machine Networks  
Part Two: Citadel  
Part Three: The 3 Theories of Mutuality  
Part Four: 8/29/2086

Okay, then, part 4, here we go.

Now that you understand Mutuality, and I hope you do, here's what happened on August 29th.

Joe and I sortied with my machine in the third array - launching from the Delcore itself.

Delcore was Citadel HQ, home to the first three Bastion arrays, research, development, me, and Joe. He chose to have HQ built on the Pacific shore, close to the Low Desert, reasoning that it was the best place to monitor threat activity and adamant about the choice even considering the potential radiation still in the air. It was a wasteland. So, the Delcore was kind of a bunker, really. We lived there.

We sortied and I followed the threat to the

[TRUNCATED CONTENT]

couldn't see it.

In the dream I only saw my machine with the same mark on its dome; it started like a cut across the front of its sleek black optus, glowing bright white, buckling the steel and titanium. The cut extended, around the entire circumference of the dome, leaving a white, burning, blinding bright diadem there.

The glow from it swelled, and expanded, and started spinning. Around and around the optus head of the machine - my machine - spinning faster, impossibly fast, until it was so fast that it appeared not to move at all. Brighter, brighter, and further it glowed, until I in my dream couldn't bear to look at it anymore. Like I was staring directly at an exploding star.

And I heard it again. The same voice I'd heard on the Line, in my head, a voice that wasn't mine and wasn't his. It said the same thing. “

[TRUNCATED CONTENT]

It wasn't like smoke, really. No one but me saw it happen, and then the machine was gone.

When I woke up, I was numb and cold and itching all over and it felt like a piece of my soul was just beyond me. I couldn’t stop shaking and twitching and breathing out of time, thinking and hoping he would hear me, but there was no reply. Just the subconscious sense of the open Line, like a telephone connection buzzing but silent, and I was yelling, unanswered, indefinitely.

They told me the Delcore was a monolith. They showed me the pictures. They waited until I’d explained as much as I knew, of course, but they finally told me.

Some time, where I sit, has passed since then. But time, as the network knows it - as I know it, the greater machine knows it - as We Know it - is going to become a lot less complicated in a big hurry as soon as I send this back.

Her name is

[TRUNCATED CONTENT]


End file.
